irl, with such an infirmity,--that's not at
all the thing!

Having established in these terms the injustice of fate, the Captain
reached the threshold of his dear cafe, but he saw there such a mob of
blue blouses, he heard such a din of laughter and click of
billiard-balls, that he returned home in very bad humor.

His room--it was, perhaps, the first time that he had spent in it
several hours of the day--looked rather shabby. His bed-curtains were
the color of an old pipe. The fireplace was heaped with old
cigar-stumps, and one could have written his name in the dust on the
furniture. He contemplated for some time the walls where the sublime
lancer of Leipsic rode a hundred times to a glorious death. Then, for an
occupation, he passed his wardrobe in review. It was a lamentable series
of bottomless pockets, socks full of holes, and shirts without buttons.

"I must have a servant," he said.

Then he thought of the little lame girl.

"That's what I'll do. I'll hire the next little room; winter is coming,
and the little thing will freeze under the stairs. She will look after
my clothes and my linen and keep the barracks clean. A valet, how's
that?"

But a cloud darkened the comfortable picture. The Captain remembered
that quarter-day was still a long way off, and that his account at the
Cafe Prosper was assuming alarming proportions.

"Not rich enough," he said to himself. "And in the mean time they are
robbing me down there. That is positive. The board is too high, and that
wretch of a veterinary plays bezique much too well. I have paid his way
now for eight days. Who knows? Perhaps I had better put the little one
in charge of the mess, soup au cafe in the morning, stew at noon, and
ragout every evening--campaign life, in fact. I know all about that.
Quite the thing to try."

Going out he saw at once the mistress of the house, a great brutal
peasant, and the little lame girl, who both, with pitchforks in their
hands, were turning over the dung-heap in the yard.

"Does she know how to sew, to wash, to make soup?" he asked, brusquely.

"Who--Pierette? Why?"

"Does she know a little of all that?"

"Of course. She came from an asylum where they learn how to take care of
themselves."

"Tell me, little one," added the Captain, speaking to the child, "I am
not scaring you--no? Well, my good woman, will you let me have her? I
want a servant."

"If you will support her."

"Then that is finished. Here are twent